


Operation: 'That's the Tea'

by Narci



Series: helen au [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Attempted Kidnapping, Fluff, FrostIron - Freeform, Gen, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Loki & Tony Stark Friendship, Lots of Tea, M/M, News, No Angst, OC, Soulmate AU, Teen!fic, outsider pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:55:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23813380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Narci/pseuds/Narci
Summary: Helen admits that she makes assumptions more than she should, and sometimes, they end up very wrong. However! This time, she knows she’s not wrong.-what happens after operation: best buddies... no one stays a kid forever
Relationships: Loki/Tony Stark
Series: helen au [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1715743
Kudos: 47





	Operation: 'That's the Tea'

>x<

Though Helen really shouldn't pick favorites, no teacher should, she definitely has. In all the thirty-five years that she's been teaching, two particular students stand out. Despite them only being with her for a short period, not even a year, more than ten years ago, she remembers those days distinctly, and she always will, Helen reflects fondly over her morning cup of tea. 

The apartment Helen Thoreau lives in is well furnished and currently dimly lit as she watches the news. Nowadays, all the news is about celebrities. Helen thinks laughingly, she’s taught almost everyone in the tabloids frequently at one point in their lives. The amount of high class weddings she’s attended in the past year alone is ridiculous. Still, she wouldn’t mind being invited to another if it is for the right people…

She snuggles lazily down into her 3000 dollar couch. Thinking about her favorites students always inspires an interesting mix of nostalgia, pride, and melancholy. Helen misses them, but she is so very proud of them, she surprises even herself sometimes. A felt blanket weighs heavily on her shoulders as she contemplates the television in front of her. Helen smiles a secret smile saved only for her boys. Yes, she wouldn’t mind going to another wedding at all.

-5 years ago-

Anthony, you can call me Tony!, Stark is on the television as Ms. Thoreau enters her luxury flat. That in itself isn’t unusual, Tony is a remarkably high profile teenager, it’s the headline that catches her eye. 

_‘Stark Heir Narrowly Avoids Death’_

Immediately, she drops her purse and rushes over to sit on the couch, grabbing the remote to unmute it along the way. As far as Helen can see by the video footage, Tony’s injured, but not dangerously so. She exhales a sigh of relief at that right before the reporter begins talking. 

“While heading to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the limo holding the young Stark and his bodyguard Harold Hogan was driven off the road by an, as of yet, unidentified vehicle. The following crash resulted in Mr. Hogan losing consciousness, and Mr. Stark being captured. Two hours later, a ransom call was received, however, before anything could be done in response, the fifteen year old managed to escape his kidnappers and call attention to his location by setting off a series of explosions.” The woman on screen looks so very bored when she says this that Helen begins to question if her words are actually true. Nevertheless, she continues to watch, “He was rescued approximately thirty minutes ago and promptly rushed to an emergency room to have his wounds treated. That’s it for now, but we’ll be back with more soon, so stay in tune!” 

With a light frown, Helen pushes the mute button and settles back into her couch. She ignores her discarded purse for a moment while she ponders what she just saw. Objectively, this probably isn’t the first time someone has attempted to kidnap Tony. Still, the image of him being forced into an ambulance does not sit particularly well with the veteran teacher. How old is he now? The news reporter said fifteen. 

Helen puffs a sigh and says to herself, “Fifteen, aye? Perhaps it’s about time I send that letter. If I wait any longer, he just might..” 

Standing requires energy that she barely has, but Helen manages somehow. Without allowing herself to continue on that train of thought, she goes into her bedroom. There’s a box under her bed calling out to her and a couple of letters to send. Usually, she waits until her students reach a moment of stability in their lives or achieve a certain maturity they lacked, but this is a unique situation, she supposes, and it needs to be treated as such. Tony Stark may not be what anyone would call stable, and he certainly isn’t very mature, Helen giggles to herself, but his letter will help him at this particular moment in his life more than it will any other time. That fact practically makes Helen’s decision for her.

And maybe she’ll send Loki his, too. 

-4 years ago-

A year after she sends out her two favorite students’ letters, another news headline catches her attention as she whips up a quick dinner for herself and her newly acquired puppy. This time, it’s about Loki, though. That’s what makes her hand pause more than anything else. Usually when Loki is on the television, it’s because of something his brother did that he was dragged along for. Helen can’t actually think of a time the news focused on Loki, and only Loki. Well, there’s a first time for everything, she supposes as she sets the bowl of pancake batter she had been stirring on the counter and wanders over to see the words on the screen better. 

_‘Loki Odinson, adopted son of the weapons tycoon Odin, has a confirmed soulmate mark!’_

Immediately, Helen grimaces. She actively contemplates switching the channel to watch something more entertaining (like Criminal Minds, surprise, surprise, she has a soft spot for Reid, okay?), but she ultimately decides that finding the remote is more work than ignoring the senseless celebrity privacy violations. She pities Loki for what he’s most likely going through at the moment, but there’s not anything she can do to fix it, so she walks back into the kitchen and finishes cooking the pancakes she abandoned mere minutes ago. They end up disappointingly dry, but Helen blames that on the distraction of the news headline and isn’t too upset. 

-1 ½ years ago-

Helen admits that she makes assumptions more than she should, and sometimes, they end up very wrong. However! This time, she knows she’s not wrong. With a cup of warm tea in her hands and the news playing in front of her silently, Helen comes to a conclusion she would swear her life on the truth of: Loki and Tony are soulmates. 

There is no doubt in her mind that they are currently dating, and that they have been for at least a month or so, probably since Tony’s eighteenth birthday party. The media went into a frenzy when the notoriously hard-to-get-along-with-for-a-long-period-of-time geniuses appeared to be becoming friends. Helen knew the truth of course, as the two had been friends since Tony had punched Loki’s bully. Regardless, the two were soon being spotted together almost every week. Every time, without fail, the new sightings brought a smile to Helen’s face. 

As time went on, the media settled down and the news adapted to the change of Loki and Tony becoming _LokiandTony_. Seeing them together makes a small part of Helen’s chest tighten. The sight always reminds Helen of the biggest mistake she ever made in her entire career. Letting Howard Stark transfer Tony to a boarding school after all, despite the boy’s spectacular behavior under her teaching, is her biggest regret to this day. 

Helen remembers the devastated look on Loki’s face when Tony told him in a quiet voice that he was leaving. Helen remembers the shimmer of tears in Tony’s eyes that he refused to let fall because a certain someone had ingrained in him that _‘Stark men are made of iron, boy, they don’t_ cry _, goddammit.’_ Helen remembers the little hug the boys shared before Tony left for good. 

And, lastly, she remembers how Loki had been after Tony was gone. It was like all her progress in the previous months was undone viciously. No, it was worse than that. It was like Loki had lost something he’d never get back. Something he needed. Something he couldn’t live without. Helen’s heart broke even more everyday that passed by without Loki smiling, or smirking, or snarking at the other kids. 

Growl, her quickly growing dog (and she knows it’s a stupid name, but she’s not good at those sorts of things, alright!), pulls her from the memories she can’t change by jumping up on the couch, even though he knows he’s not allowed, and after pushing him off with a stern ‘no’, Helen goes back to watching the television as the two geniuses play chess on screen, probably having a date at a local cafe. They look happy, Helen decides with a light heart. They deserve to be happy. That day may be a black mark on Ms. Thoreau's teaching record, but it seems like everything's worked itself out in the end. After all these years, Helen smiles softly into her cup of overly sweet earl grey, they are together again.

xl\fin/lx

**Author's Note:**

> it's actually kind of funny-i've now continued a series i was unsure of yet excited about, but this ended up completely different from what i wanted to write, so i don't think i'm done with this universe quite yet...
> 
> anyway, i hope y'all enjoy this!!!
> 
> 💕💕💕


End file.
